


Paper Ring

by monanotlisa



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, M/M, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-04
Updated: 2009-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/pseuds/monanotlisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set immediately after SGA 5x19.</p><p><i>Leaving Las Vegas on a whim and a prayer?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Ring

When he wakes, he's lying on his back. On crisp sheets instead of the desert floor. The lights are at once too bright and slightly dulled.

John keeps his eyes open, anyway. It's a struggle, but then, what isn't?

To his left – his _bedside_, John realises, the side of his bed – there's movement, sudden. Startled. With a bit of effort, John turns his head and stares at Rodney McKay. _Dr. Rodney McKay, I presume?_ Next to John in the ugliest hospital room he's ever been in. And the competition is pretty stiff. Everything hurts like hell, familiarly.

John still can't get over McKay sitting…well, he was sitting there; now he's getting to his feet and rotating those shoulders with a wince and a long, kinda peeved glance. "Hi there – finally, I should say."

"Di –" John's fucking voice stutters and dies; he tries again, "did you come and get me?"

"No, of course not." Impatient response from McKay, clearing John's head at a faster rate than his own deep breaths. "You died right there on the desert floor, and now you're in heaven, which just so happens to look a lot like a super-secret military infirmary."

That explains the lack of windows, the drab draperies, and the haphazardly scattered med trays, John thinks. "Thank you," he says.

"You - well, actually, I guess you could thank me if you wanted to." The brisk tone can't quite hide the fact that McKay's – what, proud? "After the threat was neutralised, Woolsey reminded them that it took more than cleaning up as much as possible of the radiation and removing the alien tech."

John's not sentimental enough to think it meant anything but, 'remove the human body too.'

"But when they found you alive, barely so…anyone ever tell you that you have the survival instincts of a lemming? They did phone me, and at that point, I took care of y – your extraction."

John can hear the _you_ that McKay replaced at the last minute. It's telling. What exactly it tells, John doesn't know. He rarely does, but it's always revealed itself. "Why not get me to one of the what, ten hospitals around?"

McKay snorts. "For one thing, you weren't exactly a picture of health. And then what? Explain your condition, or worse, have you spill everything to some befuddled night nurse who's good friends with a yellow-press reporter?"

"I'd hardly share anything out of my own free will, McKay."

"Yes, why does that surprise me _not at all_?" It comes out surprisingly sharp; yet again John is reminded of McKay's earlier tales of that…other John Sheppard whom McKay knew: golden boy hotshot in another galaxy. What's he not telling? "Besides, we couldn't risk another body with Wraith marks."

After they stood by when half a dozen of them were scattered all across the district before? Not the whole truth that McKay is telling there. Now that John's more awake, he can see dark smudges under those wide blue eyes, not to mention stubble way past five o'clock.

_I took care of you._

"Cut the bullshit, McKay," and all right, that gets a rise out of McKay: colour in his cheeks, a lift of that stubborn chin. "You said it yourself; you only came here because of the danger this…Wraith posed. Could have just dropped me off at the hospital with a note and a guard and long gone home."

To that _other galaxy_. Through a _star gate_.

Jesus.

McKay doesn't say anything, just presses his lips together and stares at John. It's unnerving, not just because of the jumble of craziness that John's life has become.

"Okay, fine." Fine's the last word John would apply to the situation, but he can roll with McKay being honest. Probably. "As I mentioned several times before, I know who you are, but more importantly…" Self-important, more like; John has to bite down the urge to tell McKay to get on with it. "I know what you can do and who you could be."

That's – wow. A fucking condescending thing to say. It makes him itch, not to hit McKay but to shock him.

"Your friend, right?" McKay's eyes open a little wider at John's words, and John knows he's got it. "That's what the other Sheppard was, when you met him. Forget all that glorious 'team leader' and 'saving the galaxy several times over' crap; you miss him in ways you don't even _know_, and now you think you can replace him with - what, my prodigal son self?"

"That's –" Kudos to McKay; he catches himself quickly enough and straightens, crossing his arms, all that smug, demonstrative ease gone. "Not what I had in mind. If you had let me finish instead of being all bitter, I'd have told you the truth: Atlantis has survived so far, but it could be doing so much better with someone like you."

"With someone like me. Right." John lets his voice slow to a drawl, the one that drove friends and enemies crazy, when he still had either. "Aren't you talking about someone who _is_ me, just, unfortunately, the fucked-up version?" Maybe McKay wasn't so wrong about the bitterness there; John can hear it in his own low voice. And that's a first, talking about his trainwreck existence, thinking about how he doesn't just rate against his fellow soldiers, his other family members but himself.

"Oh, please, Sheppard." McKay, the bastard, laughs. It's brief, and there's little to no humour in it, but still. "If I'd wanted a pity party, I'd have brought balloons." John just looks at him – keeps looking at him until McKay's face softens a little. "I guess you deserve the whole story: John Sheppard – before you start getting huffy again, yes, any of you – is in possession of an, an extremely rare gene that enables you to initiate and work the technology I showed you."

"The chair. And the -" fuck, he's had to suspend his disbelief ever since he found the first desiccated body, "the spaceships too?" Wow. A world of wow. He didn't see that one coming. Sure, the story isn't getting any less fantastic, but McKay doesn't seem the type prone to flights of fancy. Or else he's hiding it under a façade of competent assholery.

"Controls, switches, lights, weapon systems…pretty much, mmh, everything?" That comes out downright perky. Hardly a word John would use to describe Rodney McKay, but he looks the part, too. Thinking about a certain mythical city beyond the stars, no doubt.

One that could use a John Sheppard. He's not sure how he feels about that, except less angry. "So you do want me at Atlantis."

For his _genes_. That's a new one.

McKay's hands – broad and strong, weirdly un-scientific hands – are tightening around the metal railing at the foot of John's bed. John blinks, looks back up when McKay answers. "On Atlantis; it's an island, of sorts. And obviously, very much so. You'd help us, more than you could ever imagine – and that's not a romantic exaggeration but the truth, Sheppard."

"But it's worked so far. You already have a team."

"Yes, yes, don't get me wrong; Ford has finally grown into his commander role, Cadman is…well, she's Cadman, and Teyla continues to be everything I could ever wish for in a Pegasus liaison – and more."

Teyla. More, as in: girlfriend?

"So what's the problem, McKay?" No more lies. John is getting tired of half-truths, too, come to think of it, one more ominous than the other.

"I may have a team, but I also have a brain, incidentally the brightest one in two galaxies: It's a waste to let you…languish on Earth, Sheppard. It's always been not just a waste but _criminal_ letting our own Ronon run around Pegasus with a tracker in his…oh, never mind; too long a story for you, especially in your state. Let's just say that it wasn't only the other you who impressed me when I travelled into the alternate dimension."

Okay, now he's supposed to get excited about Rodney McKay going _Ocean's Eleven_ on his and this guy Ronon's ass. The kicker is that John thinks he might.

Eventually.

"Don't forget I'm not military any more, McKay. The brass isn't hot on dishonourables." He's not sure why he's like that; Rodney is right about one thing. There's little keeping John here, even less worth keeping. But leaving Las Vegas on a whim and a prayer?

"The SGC will do everything I need them to do."

Oh, _hell_. McKay sees John's face and looks away – just a second, but it's a victory. "Okay, fine, I admit it's not quite that easy. But it's an international mission, and the priorities are – rather different from what you have known, I promise. And while we're hanging on in Pegasus, that's pretty much all we do. Now, after you saved Earth with this little stunt here? I know I can push _you_ through, John."

There's that McKay confidence again. Maybe it's rubbing off, but John is starting to consider this. Consider this for real. He's all shot up in an infirmary bed, but he'll get out of that again, that much he knows.

Today, it's standing up again. Tomorrow? John's thinking, yeah, all right. Pegasus.

**Author's Note:**

> Owing a debt of gratitude to [](http://rheanna27.livejournal.com/profile)[**rheanna27**](http://rheanna27.livejournal.com/) and [](http://solvent90.livejournal.com/profile)[**solvent90**](http://solvent90.livejournal.com/). Rheanna especially made ~~in-vul-ner-able~~ invaluable suggestions. Thank you.


End file.
